Missa Charles Darwin

Missa Charles Darwin is a multi-movement composition scored for unaccompanied male vocal quartet written by Gregory W. Brown using texts from Darwin compiled and edited by New York Polyphony bass Craig Phillips. [A new mixed-choir version is also available.] Based on the standard five-movement structure of the Mass, the Missa Charles Darwin honors the compositional and harmonic conventions of its musical antecedents. Unlike traditional Mass settings, however, the sacred texts have been replaced with excerpts from On The Origin of Species, The Descent of Man, and Darwin’s extant correspondence.

At its core, the Missa Charles Darwin is the product of centuries of cultural evolution. It is built on the standard five-movement form, its harmonic and musical vocabulary is informed by “ancestral” precedent, and its function — like all musical settings of text — is to augment the expressive power of language. But instead of the traditional sacred texts, the Missa Charles Darwin employs the secular writings of Charles Darwin, specifically his On The Origin of Species.